How to Implement Personalized Learning in 25 Steps

Chances are you have already seen our Personalized Learning Implementation Framework with its 25 squares and 25 questions. Based on feedback from the field, we created a guide for how to use it, complete with sample activities, artifacts and examples from districts and our best tips for how to map out your personalized learning journey. It’s just another way we are creating resources for the field because as we all know, sharing is caring.

Can You Personalize Learning in 3 Days?

If you are the new CAST Tech HS in San Antonio, Texas we are betting you can! We are excited to launch a project to help CAST Tech become a model of personalized learning in the district. Our team will spend three intensive days this summer working with the 8 teachers and the school leadership team to help them start their year with meeting students’ needs top of mind. A bit unusual for us? Yes. Mission impossible? No way. We also plan to spend the rest of the year working with the leadership and teachers to implement personalized learning in a high quality, high fidelity way. Think of those three days as a superboost of PL to start the year right. We can customize our approach to meet the needs of any district and this time is no exception.

We Can’t Get Enough of NY!

Education Elements is excited to be working with North Rose-Wolcott School District this year. A member of the Wayne-Finger Lakes BOCES, the district will roll out personalized learning to its elementary, middle, and high school beginning in September 2017. We are looking forward to supporting the work of moving to student-centered learning in the district!

SPOTLIGHTS

Student Mastery Through Competency Based Educational Models

As districts deepen their experience with personalized learning, they are keenly interested in developing systems and structures that support the work. For many this involves shifting towards competency-based models of education in which students progress through defined learning objectives based upon mastery, not simply when it’s time to move on to the next unit. However, making that shift can involve a variety of pressures on current district systems - pacing guides, assessment calendars, and even grade levels may be due for an overhaul depending on the depth of implementation of a CBE approach.

In spring 2017, Education Elements published the CBE Toolkit in collaboration with Digital Promise in hopes of breaking down the complexities of CBE into key focus areas. The Toolkit provides a framework for thinking through different elements of district systems that demand consideration in the shift to CBE. Ten districts from across the country outlined their approaches to CBE implementation alongside resources curated from CBE field at-large. EdWeek, T.H.E. Journal, and Edsurge have all covered the toolkit this spring.

The Biggest Challenge to Personalized LearningAmong District Leaders, School Leaders & Teachers

FEATURED BLOGS

The Pathway to Superintendency

Guest Blog by James Guerra

Aspiring superintendents face a difficult but worthwhile challenge to lead a school district. All school districts, for better or worse, are the subject to immeasurable scrutiny from internal and external stakeholders. More times than not the scrutiny comes in different forms and through various outlets- editorials, social media, TV, etc.

25 Focus Areas For Implementing Personalized Learning

By Keara Duggan

In 2015 we published the first edition of our Personalized Learning Implementation Framework (aka PL Framework) based on lessons learned from working with schools and districts over the previous five years. Since then, the framework has been used in hundreds of schools and districts around the country, downloaded more than 2,000 times, and leveraged as an invaluable tool to help teams articulate their strengths and areas of need when it comes to designing, launching, and scaling personalized learning.